Beloved Abusive 2nd Step-Father Teacher,
The psychological dominance of my mother – where you effectively reprogrammed her into compliance: avoiding behaviors that triggered your aggression and rewarding her submission with stroking and approval – left me motherless and unsafe. I blamed you for that, but now see that on some level she willingly chose to live this pattern with you and that this is none of my business and there is no blame or offense for me here,
The elements that make up the body are not ours, they are on loan. How much more so a loan is a child-body’s right and expectation of a father-body. These needs for safety and love are real, but as an adult, they are no longer true. You were unable to love me when you told me I was not your blood and to keep out your way. That statement was a reflection of your inability to love rather than any personal attack on me. My unmet expectations for love were never yours to fulfill.
The real offense was your violence and cruelty to the child I then was. I see now you saw me, even as a child, as a rival for my mother’s attention and love. I see that your jealousy comes from a wounded child place in you. You are no longer the monster from my childhood. You are just a wounded broken man-child expressing his lovelessness and projecting your fear on a threat to your source of love and emotional support through violence and cruelty. For this offense, I forgive you.
I deserved a loving home, an emotionally safe place, where I was seen and valued and not simply in the way of a couple’s self-absorbed pursuit of their own abusive relationship. I don’t believe you are capable of love. That your relationship with my mother has been parasitic nature. It is her choice to live in a denial and happy family fantasy that facilitates the pursuit of her childhood project of winning the love of an emotionally unavailable man. I feel on some level you understand you are exploiting and manipulating her weak-will like the ‘pimp’ you esteemed yourself to be in your youth. This is however between you and her. Her inability to protect me from your brokenness and establish healthy boundaries is on her. For the offense of neurotic compulsive jealous rivalry with a child not of your blood, I forgive you. It is instinctual after all, and with a loveless heart, you didn’t have the power to overcome your blood’s prejudice and respect me or my relationship with my mother.
I release you from your crime and the punishment of my anger and judgment. Be well and may you come to love.
Love,
LOVE.